gibs

I would put screens rather than solid acrylic on the top, it allows oxygen exchange and heat to escape.

Great work all around!

Thanks Mike! What kind of screens would I be looking at? A fish or 2 that I am looking at getting, have a tendency to jump which is why I want something. Maybe something for like a screen door? Would drilling a ton of 1/4" holes in the acrylic be enough? Just thinking out loud

What's your plan for mounting the lights if you ditch the canopy?

I think you did a nice job with the clean up btw - Stand, tank and canopy are looking very sharp!

Thanks! Its been a little bit more of a challenge than I thought but I think its coming along nicely

Basically just fab up a pendant style arm that would either attach to the stand or hang from the ceiling. Doing my own DIY LEDs so I can go a couple of different directions with it.

Staring at my tank tonight to get it to magically finish itself with my grand esp skills. And I had a thought so I thought I would run it by you guys. I am going to have some extra acrylic from building my sump I am thinking of just cutting some pieces for the top and ditching the canopy. What do you guys think?

Well I have the stand finished mostly still have a few spots that need to be touched up but it's all on stuff that I can get to later, like the doors. Got the tank about 99% cleaned up mainly just need to find some place to take it and get a extra hand rinsing it all out really well and seeing what minor spots I have missed. Led parts are ordered for my DIY project and and going to pick up the acrylic for building my sump tomorrow. Hopefully I can get both projects done this week while I have some time off Ordering a octopus skimmer and ro/di system in the next few days and all I have left to figure out is what size pump I am going to use.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/products/pumps-and-plumbing/powerheads-and-submersible-pumps/ehiem-aquarium-pumps/eheim-1250-universal-aquarium-pump-320gph.html

This is the pump I am currently looking at. At 320gph this is close to 4x my 85g tank and most recommendations I see is 3-5 times. Any thoughts? This isn't counting the sump which will hold about 19 gallons in operation and 29.5 gallons completely full.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/75-gpd-ro-di-5-stage-standard-system.html

This is the RO/DI setup I am looking at.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/products/protein-skimmers/reef-octopus-protein-skimmers/octopus-protein-skimmer/reef-octopus-4-pinwheel-in-sump-skimmer.html

And my skimmer

Any suggestions on upgrades or different systems or even better places to buy all of it are welcome. What about my bulkheads and plumbing? Is this something I should look at buying from BRS or can I just go pick up what I need from home depot? Everything I have seen so far looks no different that normal plumbing supplies.

Yeah I am going to go with that but ordering some extras of each and a smaller heatsink for the fuge and I am just going to play around with it some and see. I got so many different opinions I am just going to have to try some different stuff and see what happens.

Hmmmmmm

Yeah I am having a problem in mind coming up with a good way to spread it all out I will play with it some more and see what I can come up with. Really wanting to get these ordered soon cause I got some time the end of this week to start working on it!

Ok here is my second draft. I added more RB's and got rid of the neutral whites. I kept the warm whites cause some research I did said if you are adding different colors the warms will help blend everything and as long as you have enough blues you should avoid the yellowing effect. So I added some reds red-oranges greens and violets. Let me know what you think. Not really digging the placements at the moment so if anyone has any better ideas of spreading out the colors let me know.

Hmm you do bring up some good points and I don't want to discount them, but I did a lot of reading of Josh Sanjays and the red and oranges just don't seem to make a difference from a point where you can measure it. Now some people say they see great pop and some say not. Of course this is the huge issue with LED's right now what one person does on one tank very rarely and can be 100% replicated for another that is just slightly different dimensions or other factors. So yes i am still debating whether to add some more reds or oranges but haven't fully decided. The tank brace is 2" wide and black plastic and my concern with it is mainly casting a large shadow on it.

If you have a center brace, you might want to stack some extra light above it so you don't have a big dark spot in the middle...that's what I did, and I actually wish I had a little bit more light above my brace.

I think you're undervaluing the cool whites, and overvaluing the Blues. If it were me, I would lean more towards a mix of more Royal blue and less regular blue, and more cool white and less neutral white. The cool white is not all the blue looking, but the neutral white is kind of a warm color.

I would sacrifice a few normal blues and add a couple of Violet, or Red-Orange.

Remember that if you have too many blues, your overall brightness might not be what you want. My light is powerful enough to grow SPS, but I do wish it was a little brighter, and I even have a higher white to blue ratio than you do. But then again I like a fairly bright tank.

Also, remember that with drivers, you can only run the driver at the max output suitable for your weakest LED. So if your whites can handle 1500mA and your blues can take 1000mA and you have them on the same driver, guess what amperage your whites have to run? Yep, 1000mA.

Try to separate your colors to different drivers as much as possible, so you can maximize the output of each LED type.

Ok so your saying leave all the warm lights and all the royalblues and trade out some neutral whites with some cool whites and add some red-orange and ultraviolet for some of the blues? I keep reading that red doesn't add much to the look or light spectrum compared to regular whites and looking at the spectral graphs for warm white versus the red and red orange it doesn't look like I am gaining much? My idea of leaving a space for the brace in the middle is to not make a bunch of big shadows. I may end up stacking a bunch of lights on it in the end but we will see.

Also, regarding night time illumination...IMHO your tank should be fairly dark. I have 4 cheap radioshack LEDs over my 75g, and I still have to turn them so that they don't shine directly into the tank. A little goes a loooong way for night lights. In my setup, using mean well drivers, my lights stay on until they get to 12%, then off. So they do dim down a long way, but then abruptly turn off. There is no low light output setting with my Cree/Meanwell setup.

Have you thought about a controller? I use a fairly inexpensive one that fades 4 independent channels up or down.

I am planning on using 4

Mean Well ELN-60-48D

Still haven't completely made my mind up on these but they seem the most popular and a very good product from everything I can see.

Or are you talking about a tank controller? I am using the apex neptune at the moment.

Welcome back

Some other thoughts I am thinking of cause the kids are asleep and I can do that at the moment LOL.

I know 48 is a bit much for my tank so I am thinking of going 3 rows instead of 4. This will give me 36 instead of 48 I have read on several sites that this should be plenty for my tank but I like the idea of being able to add more later if I wish so maybe I should just cut some out of the current design?

The space in the middle is because my tank has a brace across the middle.

If i center this in the middle of the canopy. I will still have 8" on each side I think that without using lenses I will get a plenty of light to the entire tank but not 100% sure of this.

Most sites and stuff I have read say have more blues than whites but I am having a problem trying to layout extras in a symmetrical design....Any thoughts?

Ok this is a rough first sketch I currently have 48 LEDs in this which I think is a little much but I am using the dimensions of the 6" by 20" heatsink from rapid led. I am think of cutting out a few whites and adding a few more RB's and a few ultraviolets which I have none of right now.

Let me know what you guys think.

Aquanotes is the Android app I use also...it works ok but can't wait for the neptune approved version.

Welcome and good luck

Man I think it would be to big for my 85g tank or I would jump all over it LOL

Hey guys I have decided my next part of my build I want to tackle is my DIY ledlighting. This is for 2 reasons

1. It seems to be the one that needs the most planning and thought and there is so much out there information wise that after a entire afternoon of researching I am still a little bit confused.

2. This seems to be the one part where I will have to order everything online and get it ordered and will take a chunk of time getting the fans/heatsinks/soldering/cover all put together in my canopy.

Here is what I have so far.

My tank is 36" Long 25" tall and 18" wide. From what I can determine I am wanting 36-40 LEDs mostly white and royal blue with a 1w to 1.5-2 RB ratio.

I am going to go with Cree leds as I have found numerous sources stating these are the best.

Lights will approximately be 6"-8" above the water.

Questions:

1. I have several people say they are using reds, violets, oranges, etc. and getting dramatic differences in the color pop even though we know that most corals live to deep in the ocean to see these colors in nature. No data seems to exist to say that this will anyway effect coral growth bad or good but many people say the viewing difference is better and some not. What is your guys experience/advice on this?

2. Many sources state to intermix some cool whites with the normal whites but I have no idea what ratio to intermingle them? Any thoughts advice would be awesome.

3. Some people say that the Royal blues are to harsh for moonlights and to use the standard blues? Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

4. I know I need drivers and will be going with the dimmable type but what experiences have to guys at sites to buy the cree lights and dimmers?

5. What am I not thinking of?

Thanks guys for taking a look at this for me I appreciate it! I will be traveling after tomorrow afternoon till Thursday or Friday but will be keeping an eye on it as I can.

For got to add I have thought really hard about the corals I want to keep and talked alot about it with my daughter tonight and looking at different stuff here is a small wish list of what we plan for the tank and just as a FYI this will be all over a year or more I plan on stocking this tank slowly.

1. Fuzzy dwarf lion

2. red sea star (Fromia sp.)(or something similar but you get the idea)

3. 2 sponges a red and a blue sponge tree. (I have heard that blue sponge trees are available but no real luck finding one online for sale so maybe a similar color but different blue)

4. Mostly softies like devil hand leathers, finger leathers, toadstools etc. Mostly moderate light moderate flow type species.

5. Anemone like a bubble tip or condy that both require moderate lighting to little bit heavier lighting will be definitely making a spot up for them to be closer to the lighting as I think this will be the one possibly high light requirement for my tank.

Ok guys been a busy week but I got the tank stand finished

When I tried to sand it and restain I learned a important lesson lol. The staining that made me want to refinish it absorbed deep into the wood so when I tried to restain no stain would take on those stain areas. Sooooo.... since I was going with a really dark stain anyway to match the rest of my living room furniture I went ahead and painted it black with a rustoleum paint. Looks a little uneven but according to my dad who has been in the construction business his whole life he said that any oil base paint takes a couple of weeks to fully "cure", even though it is hard enough to sand and touch after 24 hours not to do any touch ups till after its cured as it will probably look a little splotchy until then.

Next 2 things to tackle is the existing t5's in the canopy look to be to far gone to try to fix so I am going to do a DIY led solution. And the existing sump is kind of small underneath the stand think I am going to build my own to take advantage of all the space I can.

Questions on LEDs anyone have a good source on how to determine the number of lights I need and what colors? I don't know if I need all the red, blues, greens, whites that are out there seems to be hundreds lol. The cost isn't that big of a deal but I want to get the best lighting I can but also not have to go back and take out a bunch of leds cause I got to many or try to add more cause I didn't have any say royal blue or reds. I understand fully the soldering and drivers and attaching them to a aluminum strip with a fan for heat disapation, as I have modded pc's for years with different leds and what have you.

Question on sumps, I have looked at several different designs and I am going to go with a internal pump and skimmer. Has anyone seen or tried to put these on a heavy duty counterbalancing shelf? I know I can get one that will support the weight and I can plumb the flexible hosing fine but not sure if there is anything I am not thinking about? just seems like such a decent idea but I can't find anyone even trying this? Anyway seems like a good idea to slide it out to get to pumps and skimmer for maintenance and such but maybe I am not thinking about something.

Hey guys thanks for all the replies I went to bed early last night and back up again this morning for a trip to houston. I am honestly wondering at this point if it has been this way for awhile cause I got back home today the two heads that were retracted quite a bit last night were at full extension again and I had to really look to see it. I did move him around a bit and looked really really closely for any sign of brown mucus or jelly and I see nothing like that. The white part is definitely a skeleton and when I got a better look at it, it goes really really deep. The hermit crab didn't stay on it long I think it was actually looking for some brown algae that is on that rock and I have never seen anything else close to it. The lighting situation has me concerned now but it seems to be doing really good over the past few weeks with very long extension and looks good as far as I can tell as far as color goes. I am going to leave him alone for a few weeks is there any harm in leaving the skeleton if everything else is doing fine? Or should I just go ahead and snip it off?

LOL fish porn! Very cool Tim

Ok my hermit crab climbed up and is doing some clean up and I got a better pic. One is the hermit crab hurting the coral more now? Should I shoo him off or just leave him alone? The 2 heads by the dead zone have now shrunken back in but they were very extended before the crab climbed up.

How long has it been at it's present location? If it's been a while, as in several weeks, I would not move it but it's a judgement call. I have one tank that has a bunch of frog spawn (50 - 60 heads) and every once in a while I have one polyp die for no apparent reason while all the others seem to be as happy as clams. I doupt it will hurt anything if you dip it but I would not neccessarily think it neccessary (Ithink my english teacher just roled over with that sentance). If you lose another polyp or if you see some "brown jelly" or slime I would dip it as soon as possible however.

I have had the since July 5th. I have never seen any sign that it was unhappy. I saw some slime when I first put it in but as I understand it that was just a defense mechanism of the coral. Nothing at all resembling "brown jelly". In the last hour or so that I have been home if you look at the second and third pics the tendrils that are right by the white skeleton area have were really drawn in but they almost all extended fully back out like the rest of the coral? I am really perplexed by this. Why would half of one head look like a skeleton and the rest seem fine? I am debating whether to pull it out of the rock to get a better look at the damaged area but scared to mess with it right now!

Can you see two individual mouths on that head of the frogspawn?

Not sure what to look for as the mouths will google it real quick and see what I find.

It looks kinda bleached in 2nd and 3rd picture? Not sure if it's flash or not, but the white "thing" @ picture 1 is the skeleton of it, not a good sign. Check water parameter lately? Water change etc?

Thats what I thought the white thing was. I did a water change Sunday morning and tested everything ammonia was zero nitrites 0 nitrates 0.75 calc was 375 a little low but not harmful magnesium 1200 also a little low but again not harmful. Will be doing more water tests tonight and will update. If you look at second pic on the left side is what I would say the frogspawn looks like in the tank. I think it was the flash that made it look a little bleached but it is a bit high in the tank...you think I should move it down to the sand bed? Its only a 16g nano so high is sitting on a rock and low is sitting in the sand bed.

Hey guys been out of town for a few days and got back to day to find my frogspawn looking weird. The person who looks in on my tank while I am gone said yesterday it looked fine. Everything else in the tank seems very happy so I have included some pics of them in case a more experienced eye will see something I dont.

This is a top down image of the frogspawn what is the white?

Side image is it splitting?

Another side image.

Zoas seem happier than ever they usually dont extend out that much and got a few new heads?

Week old mushrooms seem fine?

The gsp hasn't changed much since the day I got it lol.

ROFL I bought this off craigstlist never saw the posting here haha. Daisy just FYI it's cleaning up great and going to make a post tomorrow in the topic below. I thought the stand would go perfect with my existing furniture but once I got it home the red really really came out and looked out of place so I sanded it a bit and restained it a almost black color which fits the color of my living room furniture better .

http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/23174-just-put-a-deposit-down-on-a-85g-oceanic-tank/